The Madhya Pradesh anti-terrorism squad (ATS), which has been involved in grilling the Indian Mujahideen-Simi activists arrested earlier June, have succeeded in recovering from them 6.20 kg of gold looted from the Manappuram gold loan finance company’s office in the state capital in August 2010.
This was announced by inspector-general (ATS) Vipin Maheshwari at a press briefing at police headquarters on Friday. He said that six of the ten militants of the banned IM and Simi, who were arrested from Ratlam, Jabalpur and Bhopal earlier June were involved in robbing the Mannapuram Finance Company’s office in Bhopal. Those involved in this robbery are Dr Abu Faisal (Mumbai), Iqrar Sheikh (Ujjain), Mujib (Gujarat), Aslam (Khandwa), Zakir and Aizazuddin alias Riyaz (Kareli).
Mr Maheshwari said that the militants have confessed committing five bank dacoities, the Mannapuram finance company’s office in the state capital being one of them. The militants had conducted a month-long reconnaissance at this place and after overpowering the security guard and taking the staff as hostage at gun point they had looted about 12 kg of gold kept in the locker.
The estimated worth of this gold was about `2.5 crore. Half the gold looted from this place has been recovered from Tata Nagar, while the remaining half has been sold by them at Kollata, Ranchi, Bhusawal, Akola, and Jalgaon. For committing this robbery, the gang was living in two rented rooms — one in the old part of the city and another at Mandideep, an industrial town near Bhopal. According to ATS sources, the arrested militants are being interrogated.